ABSTRACT
There are at least three issues to consider before endeavoring to study religion in the medieval Japanese isles, beginning with the matter of what to call it. One scholar has recently argued that the term “religion” (shūkyō in modern Japanese), should not be used in reference to Japan prior to the Meiji restoration (1868). 1 Some kind of terminology must, however, be used to convey the broad set of beliefs and practices in premodern Japan, and most scholars studying premodern Japan continue to use the term since there are few useful alternatives. Moreover, a practice of using the original Japanese terminology without translation would unduly limit the readership to those students of history who have undertaken advanced study of the Japanese language.
